Recent questions and conversational topics from today and yesterday:
Who invented words? (we discussed how we thought words might have arisen from sounds made naturally and sounds made to imitate animals, etc.)
What it feel's like when you fall over (sometimes the shock is worse than the hurt, sometimes there is embarrassment too)
Water currents (we looked at how the water movement changed as it encountered various obstacles in different parts of the stream, how it went faster and slower, shallower and deeper, rougher and smoother)
Do people enjoy their work? (some people do, some people don't, etc.)
Cloud shapes (we spotted a road, a seal, a crocodile)
Cars in the road being like crocodiles in a river
How do artists work, what do they do for their work and is there actually a job where you get to paint what you like? (yes there is but if other people don't happen to like it then you don't earn enough money)
Lots of conversations with toys who ask questions with no world knowledge whatsoever, so that the conversation will go as follows (F doing toy's voice as high-pitched squeaky one and replying in her best very 6-yr old voice):
toy: What's this?
F: It's a shoe
toy: What's a shoe?
F: Well, you wear it on your foot and it protects you when you're walking outside
toy: what's your foot and what's walking and what's outside?
F: This is your foot (*touches toy's foot*) and when you move your legs with your feet touching the ground and then not touching the ground and you go forward that's walking and, well, outside is where you are if there's not walls around you and a roof over your head somewhere up high and you can probably see the sky, etc.
toy: What's a leg and what's the ground....
Lots like that and they are quite interesting to listen to, having covered buses, humans, water and many other items.

Today I was working at home, F was laptopping (she has discovered Winx on YouTube, and also googled 'Freya' and found it was a make of underwear!) and generally pootling around with a coldy snuffle. We popped out to the park for an hour and walked back along the stream, looking at the big depth rulers and describing what we could see. In the park, F played with a big stick, made friends with a nice dog, clambered about, etc. On the way back we saw a man fall over and went to help him up, so talked about that for a bit. And looked at the sky and the shapes of the clouds.

Talked a bit about not taking things other children (or some grown-ups!) sometimes say too seriously, if they seemed to be upsetting or rude or unhelpful - she has had a couple of experiences like that lately and tends to take it personally and feel very shocked and upset, so I had to explain a bit about that and how sometimes people are just mean, for whatever reason.

Soon after we came back from the park, C came over and F went back with her for 40 mins or so. Seemed to be a successful visit, they did karaoke and F went up onto C's high bed. And she brought her torch back, which C borrowed a while ago.

I did lasagne for dinner and it was delicious. We watched some old Dr Who (Warriors of the Deep with Peter Davison - the credit sequence was atrocious, I never really watched when it was him). Now I have to work most of the night as I have my deadline tomorrow and the Tuesday/Thursday thing has been a bit compromised this week, what with builders and stuff.